In a world gone nuts, it has become one of the easiest, cheapest and most reckless claims to make. Yet, it still makes headlines. And headlines can make the accusation part of your permanent Wikipedia record. The claim?

Racist!

It’s the new McCarthyism. Just as Sen. McCarthy, in the early 1950s, suspected a communist in every flowerpot, he’d cause lasting defensive wounds in all his targets, regardless of his accuracy.

Not that he got it all wrong. But he was reckless, indiscriminate, thus within three years, he was dismissed as a political arsonist.

Actually, the new, race-based McCarthyism isn’t new. It has persisted for several decades, while confusing and obscuring the identification and condemnation of genuine racism and racists.

Last month, fabulously popular rapper and new “American Idol” judge Nicki Minaj, who is black and from Trinidad and Tobago, accused former Idol judge Steven Tyler, of being a “racist” after he said in an interview that Minaj would be unable to grasp the talent in “Midwestern” contestants, which, presumably, meant white contestants.

If Minaj interpreted that as racist, I can well understand. There seemed to be a racial element to it, even if claiming that Tyler is a “racist” was extreme, perhaps reckless.

But what’s most bothersome in this case is Minaj’s racial sensitivity. It’s so selective as to be perversely comical, as in “Look who’s talking.”

Black men are “n—as,” women are “bitches” and far worse. Her enterprise is soaked in excessive boasting, sexual vulgarities and even threats of hate-filled violence. In other words, rap-certified.

Several of the titles of her songs are too low to print, thus “Kiss My Ass” must suffice as a marginal example. And her condemnation of Tyler as a “racist” should be laughable, given that one of her song titles is “N —A.S.”

Should be laughable. But it’s not. In fact, it’s excluded from the story because the news media — including entertainment and sports — are freeze-frightened to be called — you got it — racist!

Besides, Minaj is very, very popular, thus her racial sensitivity — selective as it is — must be taken seriously.

Of black NFL running back Reggie Bush, Bradshaw said he ran as if “he was chasing that bucket of chicken.”

Bradshaw explained that the crack was a part of a continuing gag directed at fellow studio analyst, Jimmy Johnson, who “loves Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

That the comment — “chasing that bucket of chicken” — if directed as a stand-alone racist crack at Bush, would have been spoken without any perceivable context, made no difference. Bradshaw was forced on the defensive.

At roughly the same time, and with the Presidential election two days away, Barack Obama was out and about campaigning with fabulously popular and wealthy rapper Jay-Z.

Jay-Z refers to black men as “n—as,” he vulgarly objectifies women as “whores” and “bitches” to be discarded immediately after sex, and he writes and records hateful, homophobic and violence-threatening numbers, plus odes to assault weapons.